


And I’m Haunted By the Memory of Who I Used to Be

by kaulayau



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Gotham City Sirens (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: But it’s not the same at all.





	And I’m Haunted By the Memory of Who I Used to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two 
> 
> And I love everythinggggggg there is about them
> 
> thank u margo robbie 
> 
> february ficlet challenge day 8: character a encounters a very hot pepper. 
> 
> plus I got the title and summary from a ghost quartet song by dave malloy it’s called tango dancer listen to it

But she was younger, then. Younger, and ten times stupider. Younger girls grow flowers in their hair and wear costumes tight to their skin. Younger girls seduce the police out of everything. Younger girls don’t fear incarceration. Younger girls forget the Batman won’t kill them. Younger girls don’t lock the doors to their secret bases. Younger girls kiss without consequence. Younger girls scream sweet nothings at each other. Younger girls don’t protect when they should. Younger girls attack when they shouldn’t. Younger girls use their powers like it’s ecstasy, because it’s _fun_ , because they want to have _fun_ , because _fun_ is the only thing there is. Revenge is fun. Murder is fun.

She’s not like that anymore. She’s used up. She’s a cocoon. She’s older, so no one wants to bother Ivy anymore. They’re afraid. Or they’re bored of her. She’s an old villain, not yet dying, not yet useless, but old, and old isn’t exciting.

Poison Ivy doesn’t have her venomous sting anymore.

And that’s just fine. Leave her to her plants. Leave her to her mimosas and hydrangeas and snapdragons and viper peppers and artichokes and cabbages. Their conversations they have unlike any other. She’s tired of human voices.

* * *

(Well, except for one, maybe. But as of now, that voice is gone. )

* * *

They’ll come to kill her sometimes — one by one, new, fresh, heroic faces. Even boring things give prestige. But the greenhouse will protect her. Vegetables shriek like the Gotham streets when threatened.

And if all else fails, well, that’s what the kitchen knives are for.

(Don’t worry. None of them are dirty. They do give a good scare.) 

* * *

It’s late February. Ivy hears a clamor, a ruckus — her plants are panicked, confused, awake. She’s used to this, but nothing will take away the hole she feels in her chest. Maybe this one is braver. Maybe this one wants a bounty. Maybe this one is different from the rest.

There’s only one way to find out. She enters the greenhouse.

Ivy cuts her finger on the knife.

This one _is_ different.

She still has her pigtails. She still has bleached-white skin. She still has a smile like a serial killer on TV. She still might trick and toy with Ivy until neither of them can move their arms.

Harley laughs, tracing the viper peppers with her long, chipped nails. They are screaming. Harley offers to cook up a mighty fine salad.

* * *

Ivy tastes her youth again, that high, intoxicated period from her teens to late twenties. Sex jokes that made the baddest bad guys piss themselves. Red lipstick smeared past their chins. Cackling one-liners. Bathtubs of money. Hundreds of men.

They talked about men a lot, back then. More than they thought they did. Because if Harley adjusted her posture just so, yes, yes, like that, then no one will shoot. And if Ivy batted her eyes, just like this, then she definitely cuts the risk of arrest.

If they kissed, for this long, at this time, then they’d get away with anything.

There was a lot of kissing. Ivy used to think it meant something, but now, she’s not sure.

* * *

That’s the last thing about younger girls — they hide manipulation with innocence. Despite all their beauty, it is an ugly, ugly thing. 

* * *

But Harley Quinn is here to stay, it seems. Her mascara is running. Her cheeks are pink. Her eyes pop with vessels.

They are both very tired, she realizes.


End file.
